Why was the classical West so far behind in religious/spiritual development?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
Eastern mysticism and religious thought has always seemed rather crude and dull to me.

You have seen nothing yet. Chungtze is good, and so is the other "canonical" Daoist book, Lit Tze. Of course, much of the crudeness probably comes from poor translation. The Chinese in it to modern Chinese is like Old English to modern English.

Originally posted by Agathon
I don't see why we should go off and annoy the Indians and Chinese by letting people like Madonna talk crap about their stuff.

[Agathon]

You have seen nothing yet. Chungtze is good, and so is the other "canonical" Daoist book, Lit Tze. Of course, much of the crudeness probably comes from poor translation. The Chinese in it to modern Chinese is like Old English to modern English.

I should get my brother on here. He reads Classical Chinese and has read all that stuff.

He likes newer stuff too. He is the only guy I know who walks around with a Chinese language copy of the entire Tales of Monkey in his bag.

Monkey.

[Ned]

Not to be "crude," but didn't Western religion have something more than just sacrifices to the gods? Didn't they have a concept of heaven and hell, and that one had to live a good life to get into heaven as opposed to hell?

[Bosh]

So you've chosen neoplatonism...

By any chance do you like being tied up and whipped by dominant women?

Well I took a class on Sufis in college, I read a book on the history of the Druze for fun and I just bought a big compilation of Gnostic primary texts for fun (I need someone to keep me busy on the airplane when I fly back and forth from New York to Korea) and all of them keep on talking about the massive influence Neo-platonism had on them. But yeah, I'm a big geek and I don't care at all for the more technical stuff that lots of history buffs (WWII ones) especially obsess about.

You have seen nothing yet. Chungtze is good, and so is the other "canonical" Daoist book, Lit Tze. Of course, much of the crudeness probably comes from poor translation. The Chinese in it to modern Chinese is like Old English to modern English.

The Chuang-tzu is great, a lot of its parable are crystal-clear and very well reasoned, although I'm sure the more linguistic bits lose a lot in translation, especially if you haven't done a lot of research into the later Mohists and the School of Names, that the Chuang-tzu is trying to rebut.

The Lao-tzu is fun and interesting an well worth reading and rereading, but definately a light-weight compared to the Chuang-tzu.

Not to be "crude," but didn't Western religion have something more than just sacrifices to the gods? Didn't they have a concept of heaven and hell, and that one had to live a good life to get into heaven as opposed to hell?

Definately, the whole idea of salvation was what all the Mystery Cults were about. Christianity was culturally kind of the KMart of the mystery cults, it did the same sort of thing is just was a lot cheaper and less exclusive (and not the sort of place you'd like your neighbors to see you shopping necessarily).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boshko
The Lao-tzu is fun and interesting an well worth reading and rereading, but definately a light-weight compared to the Chuang-tzu.

Have you read the third canonical book Lit-tzu (or however you write that name in English)?

Originally posted by Boshko
Christianity was culturally kind of the KMart of the mystery cults, it did the same sort of thing is just was a lot cheaper and less exclusive (and not the sort of place you'd like your neighbors to see you shopping necessarily).

It seems that Christianity started life as a doomsday cult, complete with things such as:

1. End of the world
2. Cult leader is (was) somehow related to a god (e.g. David Koresh claimed to be the brother of Jesus)
3. Followers are (were) isolated from society

etc.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
I should get my brother on here. He reads Classical Chinese and has read all that stuff.

He likes newer stuff too. He is the only guy I know who walks around with a Chinese language copy of the entire Tales of Monkey in his bag.

Monkey.

You've got a cool brother

Tales of the Monkey (Journey to the West) is indeed one of the Chinese classics, it used language rather close to modern Chinese.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by St Leo
Because the West did not have massive systems of slavery and oppression until a fair bit later than the East. Religion is just a naturally evolving chain that locks down the human spirit into willing drudgery.

Slavery was abolished by several states during the Warring States period and was completely abolished by the Qin dynasty. Yet no religion was developed during the Warring States period or the Spring-Autumn period. The ten major schools of thought were mostly philosophical, though some weird ones existed.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
And as for Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, none of these were polytheistic, and they were way more advanced than any western religion of the time.

Neither Daoism nor Confucianism are religious, both started as major schools of thought during the Spring-Autumn period (a prolonged period of civil war amongst the fedual lords following the Chou dynasty), the other one being the School of Law.

Confucianism can be considered as reactionary, as Confucius attempted to bring back the sort of system (a mix of fedualism and slavery) that had existed during the Chou dynasty, while the School of Law can be considered as progressive.

[Chemical Ollie]

In reply to the opening post.
Why would one world view that is obviously wrong be more "forward" than another world view that is obviously wrong?

[Bosh]

UR: Never heard of Lit Tzu, thought it was a typo and meant at Lao-tzu. How does it compare to the Lao-tzu and the Chuang-tzu?

you might also find this interesting: http://sangle.web.wesleyan.edu/etext/index.html (my old philosophy prof's page, really good teacher)

[Ben Kenobi]

1. End of the world
2. Cult leader is (was) somehow related to a god (e.g. David Koresh claimed to be the brother of Jesus)
3. Followers are (were) isolated from society

1. Yet, Christianity teaches that much will happen before this day will occur.

2. And the leader proved his claim.

3. How so? Christians are supposed to be in the world, not of it.

[Ben Kenobi]

(and not the sort of place you'd like your neighbors to see you shopping necessarily).

Most are quite open, if you ask them.

[Traianvs]

It has probably been said here already, but ancient Greeks (and Romans too for that matter), notably the scholars after a while believed that the gods were just part of a bigger God, something impossible to describe. Everything in the world is part of that God.
This was because the scholars found out that most mechanisms could be explained by using their reason. So basically all the gods that provided the world with wind, heat or whatever were kind of obsolete. So they sought another explanation which was that Universal God.

It's interesting to see that Marcus Aurelius (being a stoicist) often refers to God in his writings instead of the traditional gods (though he did refer to Zeus too, so it's a bit ambiguous), and he was not a Christian...

[Drake Tungsten]

Tales of the Monkey (Journey to the West) is indeed one of the Chinese classics

And then the Japanese improved upon it and made Dragonball.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Most are quite open, if you ask them.

I was talking about how in late Roman society Christianity was basically a poor-man's mystery cult. I wasn't implying that this was a bad thing or that this was the case today.